Insomnia
by damnitjane
Summary: Lisbon is having trouble sleeping. There is a reason for her deprivation of sleep, and she asks Jane for a favor to help her get some good rest.


**INSOMNIA**

**x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

He was about to leave for the night when he saw a light burning from her office, casting orange off the translucent walls that surrounded it. He smiled to himself and turned, making a beeline for the glass door that held her name in thick, black letters on its glossy surface. He reached out, tugged the door open with his right hand, and stepped inside.

"Burning the midnight oil, Lisbon?" he asked her, cocking his head at the brunette sitting at her desk with a pen in her hand and a folder open in front of her. "Shouldn't you be home getting some sleep?"

He looked at her closely in the orange haze of the lamp light. She looked tired, but she also looked as if she were unwilling to surrender to the deep relief of sleep. She looked up at him and he could see that her lidded eyes were slightly dropping.

"I'm fine, Jane," she told him, clearing her throat. "I have to get these depositions done for court tomorrow."

Patrick Jane was not stupid. In all the years he had come to work beside her, he knew when she was not being truthful to him. There was always this flash in her deep green eyes that held out the rawness she tried to hide from him. He shook his head at her and sighed. He knew she would not tell him much. Teresa Lisbon prided herself on being independent and worthy of no help from anyone but herself.

"Lisbon," he told her, walking over to her and taking the pen from her hand. "You look like you haven't slept in days. Are you sure nothing is bothering you?"

She tilted her head in defiance and nodded curtly. "I'm fine, Jane. It's just all this work," she assured him.

He plopped the pen down on the folder she had open on the desk and reached down to close the manila. He walked around the desk and reached for Lisbon's hand, lifting her from her oversized desk chair.

"Jane!" Lisbon exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing?"

Jane did not answer. He simply reached, turned off her lamp, and guided her to the door. When she resisted, pulling back from his grip, he turned and narrowed his eyes. She was swaying heavily on her feet, and as he looked behind her for the first time, he could see her waste can full of empty coffee containers. This explains why, over the past few weeks, she had to be reminded to finish her paperwork and a few agents and lawyers had complained that she was wired up. Jane had noticed that toward the end of the day, Lisbon had seemed to have 'crashes' where she slowed down immensely, often drifting off mentally when interviewing people. He thought that perhaps she was working too hard. Now, he knew better.

"I'm taking you home to get some sleep, Lisbon," he told her truthfully, pointing to the waste can. He watched her turn and look at where he was pointing. "You need to sleep, Lisbon."

She turned back to him and sighed. He could see that this was much more than her needing sleep. He got that familiar sensation when something deeper was afoot. He had this knack with Lisbon to dig up what really was going on behind those pretty green eyes of hers. Right now, he would set aside the root of the problem so that she could sleep.

"It's nothing, Jane," she tried to explain. "Insomnia is something that runs in my family. Plus, I have all this work to catch up on..."

"Forget the work," he told her, cutting her off and pushing open her office door. "Bertram will understand."

He guided her through her open office door and walked beside her as they made their way to the elevator. Lisbon was unsteady on her feet, her small stature body swaying to an invisible wind. She leaned softly against him once or twice as the elevator came to collect them and take them down to the parking garage.

"You can't drive in this condition, Lisbon," he soothed, taking her arm when she tried to head to her own vehicle, fumbling for the keys in her jacket pocket. "You'll get yourself killed. Come on," he tilted his head toward his Citroen. "I'll take you home, okay?"

She did not reply as he delicately guided her to his car. He opened the passenger side and sat her inside, closing the door and entering on the other side of the car. The ride to Lisbon's apartment was a quiet one. The only sounds that cut the silence were cars revving and loud music coming from some bars across town. Jane glanced over at Lisbon every so often, but his silent prayer that she nod off was not answered. She was fully awake. His eyes drifted from her deep eyes to her full lips and down to her clasped hands in her lap.

"Is that how you keep yourself awake when the coffee wears off?" he asked, nodding at her clasped hands. "Do you dig your nails into your palm to keep yourself up?"

"Got to stay awake somehow," she replied simply.

He was silent for a few minutes, letting the night race on in front of them as they neared her apartment. Something was not right, that he already figured out. What he did not know, was why she was so hell-bent on staying awake. It was not the stuff Bertram laid on her. It was more than that. For once, he did not know what this was all about. It concerned him.

"We're here," he told her, pulling up in front of her apartment and throwing the car in park.

Lisbon caught herself drifting. Her head jerked up and she looked around as if she did not know where they were. Realizing she was home, she unbuckled her safety belt and turned to Jane. She trapped her lip between her teeth and exhaled a tired, shaky breath. She held Jane's curious gaze for a few seconds before thanking him and exiting the car. He removed his key from the ignition, got out on his side, and trotted over to her.

"You're pretty fuddled, Lisbon," he explained. "At least let me help you to your front door. I'd feel better."

She said nothing as he led her up the stairs to her apartment. He stood with her at the front door. He watched as she took the keys from her jacket, her hand shaking, and stuffed the gold key in the lock and turned it. She opened the door a little before turning to Jane. There as an expression on her face that he had never seen before. It was a mix of anxiety and fear. It was strong behind her wide-open eyes as she locked her gaze on his.

"Teresa," he called out softly, putting a warm hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong? You look frightened!"

"Do you..." she trailed off sleepily. "Do you think you could stay here with me tonight?"

The shock on his face must have been intense because she shook her head and mumbled a sorry in her stupor.

"It's just... I'm scared to sleep, Jane," she told him finally. "When I close my eyes, all I see is that night with Partridge and being so close... _so close_..." she trailed off, closing her eyes. "I thought maybe if you would stay here with me, I might be able to get some sleep."

He wanted to ask her so many questions in that moment. One of which being how did she hide this from him for weeks? Why did she not come to him and ask him to do something to help her sleep? How long had she been staying awake, fueling up on coffee and god only knows what else to stay awake?

"Sorry," she apologized. "That was a dumb thing to ask."

She was breaking to him. She was falling to pieces in front of him. It had been two weeks since she almost died at the hands of Red John. Jane understood, now. She was going through some traumatic memories of walking through that decrepit building and finding a dying Partridge, only to be assaulted and put in the hospital by the serial killer that had taken his family from him. She was scared of what she saw when she closed her eyes at night. It burned in her darkened shadows behind them every night. She was afraid to sleep because of the nightmares.

Saying nothing, Jane reached out, took her apartment key from the lock, and opened the door broader, moving past her and walking into the darkened apartment. He reached out his hand to her. She took it and he pulled her softly inside and closed the door behind them with a soft snap.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

He looked at the flashing time on Lisbon's microwave and sighed, burrowing his cheek back down on the pillow she had given him. Her couch was comfortable, but because it was a strange place to him, he could not quite sleep. If truth were said, he did not want to sleep. He wanted to make sure that Lisbon was okay, and if that took every ounce of his willpower to stay

alert, he would do it. She had insisted that he try to sleep, that knowing he was just downstairs would be of great comfort, but he could not sleep. He knew, deep in his heart, that everything that had happened to her that night was because of him. If he had not rebuffed her help and made her upset, she might not have left him alone and he could have prevented what happened. He knew that was absurd, but his self-loathing and guilt did not seem to care. He had made her a cup of piping hot tea before she headed up to take a shower and get the best nights sleep in weeks. He knew that they would have to discuss the bigger issue for the long-term, but for now, she needed company and some peace of mind.

He turned to lie on his back and brought the bedspread up to his chest, placing his hands behind his head and sighing. He did not know exactly what she felt, but he know he also felt fear. When he had torn through the house and called her name time after time, and when he finally found her unconscious body spread out on that mattress like a dying animal, his heart had dropped as it had when he had found his family on that fateful night. He knew in the instant he bent down to pray to a god he swore did not exist to let him feel a pulse that he could not live without Teresa Lisbon in his life. He needed her. Oh! Oh, how selfish that was of him. He remembered the feeling of utter helplessness as his fingers clasped around her tiny wrist, sending the first prayer in years upward that he would feel the pounding of her blood through her veins. He remembered the relief and the aching in his heart when his prayer was answered. He had always tamped down his love for Teresa Lisbon for her own safety, but seeing her battered by Red John had only given him even more resolve to do what he had to do and get to a point where he could tell her he needed her in his life forever. He did not know when that would happen, but he knew that the greatest gift to himself, as selfish as it sounded, was that she was alive. She had survived. His gift was knowing the edge of losing her so that he could understand exactly how much she meant to him and how much he loved her so. Even while cleaning the blood off her face, he understood how lucky he was to have her still. It anchored his feelings for her. If he could love her, and she survived Red John, there was hope, after all.

He had just closed his eyes in tired defeat when he heard the deafening scream from upstairs. The scream was something out of a horror movie, echoing off the walls in decibels that would break any nearby wine glasses to shattered pieces. Tangled up in the cover, he kicked them off and onto the floor as he stood and raced blindly up the stairs. The screaming continued as he swung open any doors he came in contact with. The last door in the small hallway was Lisbon's room. The door was closed, so he pushed it open hard and stepped inside the dark room. He could just make out Lisbon's shadowy figure sitting up in bed from the slight moonbeams drifting in from the window on the opposite wall. He could hear her whimpering as he felt around blindly for the light switch on the wall. Feeling the switch, he flicked it on.

"Teresa!" he exclaimed, walking over and climbing into the bed with her. "It's okay! I'm here! It was just a dream."

He didn't even think about if he was overstepping some kind of boundary. He only thought of comforting her. She was sweating profusely, and the covers that had been around her were kicked on the floor at the end of the bed. She was still crying when Jane reached out and pulled her onto his lap and hugging her shaking body to his chest.

"Shh," he soothed, rubbing her arm with his hand. "I'm here, Teresa. It's over, okay?"

He waited patiently as her shaking and crying came under control, her head resting against his chest. He noticed that the nightshirt had ridden up and exposed her flesh at her thigh, so he reached above him to an afghan she had laid over the headboard and blanketed her legs with it. He smoothed back her damp hair from her equally moist forehead.

"Breathe in, breathe out," he instructed her. "Count to five in between each breath."

He could feel her chest against his rise and then fall as she exhaled deeply. She still had tears raining down her cheeks, but the shaking had stopped completely. He felt her hand rest against his chest. She was calm now.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked out, her throat thick from the tears. "I woke you."

He reached in between them and tilted her chin so she had to look at him. She wasn't seriously apologizing? He pursed his lips and shook his head, closing his eyes for a second before reopening them.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Teresa," he told her softly. "I understand and I am here with you."

"Thank you, Patrick," she said. "At least this time when I woke up screaming, I wasn't alone."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked tentatively. "It might help."

She shook her head and he let her tuck her chin into his chest as his arms wrapped tighter around her.

"Okay," he said.

"Jane?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think you could stay here tonight?"

He knew she meant in her bed comforting her. He stretched his legs out from under her and leaned back on the headboard with her. He could tell by her shallow breathing that she was about to drift back off to sleep. He rubbed the nail indentations she had dug into her palms with his fingers and answered.

"If you want me to, Teresa."

She nodded. "Please."

"I can help you with the bad dreams, Teresa," he whispered as he felt her body relax against his. "If you'll let me."

She nodded her head sleepily. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he repeated, pulling the afghan up to her chest. "Goodnight, Teresa. Sleep well."

"I love you, Jane," she mumbled half in sleep and half in alertness. He knew she wasn't coherent enough to realize she was saying things aloud.

Jane reached down and kissed her forehead. "I love you, too," he replied.

She didn't hear him. She had fallen back asleep. It was a good sleep. Wrapped in Jane's arms, Teresa had slept the best night's sleep she has had in weeks. The safety and warmth of his arms guided her into dreams that didn't make her scream or run. It was dreams of the good things she wished for.

In the blackness behind her closed eyes, she saw light. She was golden curls. She saw Jane.


End file.
